A Different Expression of the Divine: Jewish Knowledge on Geography Spaces in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Márcia Siqueira de Carvalho
Original title: Uma outra expressão do Divino: O Conhecimento do Espaço Geográfico pelos judeus na Idade Média e no Renascimento
Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism
Keywords: Geographical Knowledge, Jews, Voyages.
Voyages, since Antiquity, are important sources for topographical descriptions. Thus, religious persecutions, pilgrimages and commercial routes played a major role for geographical knowledge. This article focuses Jewish geographical knowledge in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Augustine of Hippo’s Doctrine of Jewish Witness in Partida 7.24 De los judios
David NAVARRO
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Alfonso X, Augustine of Hippo, Fourth Lateran, Jews, Siete Partidas.
This article examines Augustine of Hippo’s Doctrine of Jewish Witness in Alfonso X’s Partida 7.24 De los judios. This Augustinian tenet, derived from traditional theological anti-Judaism, serves as the juridical principle for the first six laws of the Partida. These postulates, the most extensive and detailed of the Partida, enhance the Jews’ hermeneutical features, and denote a lenient posture toward their religious freedom and communal jurisdictional autonomy. In addition, these precepts differ from the Jews’ functional traits and the segregationist tone present in the rest of the laws of the text, drawn from the Church’s Lateran campaign and popular tradition. I posit the Augustinian Witness Doctrine represents the main legal framework in the redaction of this Partida, creating an opening for a new discussion on the monarch’s debated tolerant stance toward his Jewish subjects.
Relations of power and juridical norms: the council decrees of Calahorra e La Calzada diocese’s under the bishop of D. Almoravid (1287-1300)
Marcelo Pereira Lima
Original title: Relações de poder e normas jurídicas: os decretos conciliares da diocese de Calahorra e La Calzada sob o bispado de D. Almoravid (1287-1300)
Published in Ramon Llull (1232-1316): the cooperation among different cultures and the inter-religious dialogue
Keywords: Calahorra and La Calzada, D. Almoravid, Jews, clergy, discourse, juridical norms, power relations.
This paper speaks about the juridical discourses present in the sinodal decrets of Calahorra and La Calzada in the end of XIII th century. The objective of our work is to stress the relations between the episcopal institutions and their legislative practices. In the historical and political perspective, we have chosen a specific group of tematics: the clerical reformation and the question of their ordination; the sacramental life; the norms about the Jewish Communities; and, finally, the determinations about beneficial matter of the clergy.
Rembrandt, painter of the Old Testament scenes: Samson’s stories
Alejandro ELIZALDE GARCÍA
Original title: Rembrandt, pintor de escenas veterotestamentarias: historias de Sansón
Published in
Keywords: Delilah, Jews, Old Testament, Rembrandt, Republic of the Seven United Provinces of the North, Samson.
The scientific investigations carried out during the last century aimed to address the influence that Calvinism, religion emerged during the sixteenth century as a response to the corrupt ecclesiastical institution, exercised in the various areas – social, economic and artistic – of the Republic of the Seven Provinces of the North. However, Calvinism does not help to fully understand the religious scenes produced by Hamerszoon Rijn van Rembrandt. This architect, formed in an environment of freedom of worship, halfway between the Reformed Church and the Christian Church, maintained throughout his life friendship with Jews, men of great culture and great weight in society. These relationships, along with their own life experiences, modulated their sacred scenes. Especially interesting is the analysis of the canvases painted during the 1930s and focusing on the figure of Samson, hero of the Old Testament. These compositions, milestones in the career of the painter, are still wrapped in a halo of mystery, especially with respect to his commission. In addition, these allow us to know the way in which Rembrandt composed his works, using either textual or visual sources close to his space and time or completely distant to him.
The Portuguese Medievo in Times of Free Faith: Relations between Jews and Christians in Portugal before the Catholic Monopoly Initiated in 1497
Angelo Adriano Faria de Assis
Original title: O Medievo Português em tempos de livre crença: relações entre judeus e cristãos em Portugal antes do monopólio católico iniciado em 1497
Published in Mirabilia 3 (2003)
Keywords: Jews, Liberty of Faith, Medieval times in Portugal.
In december of 1496, the king of Portugal D. Manuel I (1495-1521) ordered the expulsion of jews from the kingdom in a period of ten months –decree that would be transformed, in 1497, in forced convertion to the catholicism. It was the beginning of the catholics’ monopoly in the portuguese world, finishing the time of free faith that was a characteristic of Portugal during the Medieval age. This article should make an analysis about the "Jews’ time" in Portugal, in a period that includes since the beginning of the jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula – during the Flavio Vespasiano’s governement – until the expulsion from Spain and Portugal, in the end of the XV century – moment that deserves more attention -, giving importance to the relations between jews and christians, the contributions of jews to the portuguese society, the causes of the proihibition of free faith and the general changes to jews – converted in new-christians – and to the kingdom.
